Monday, February 06, 2012

Healthy Double Chocolate Banana Muffins—Secret Recipe Club

I made muffins from my Secret Recipe Club blog, Veronica's Cornucopia this month. In fact, I liked the muffins so much that I’ve made them twice and they are now definitely a go-to for overripe bananas for me. Veronica’s blog was another new-to-me one to get as my secret blog this month. It was really fun to read through her blog and see all the things she has posted over the years. It was a fun way to feel like I got to know her. If you haven’t seen her blog before, check it out. She’s married and can sing great and has a cute dog that loves to be in pictures with them. ;) Not only does she make and post some great things, but I enjoyed her writing.

Just like usual, I had a hard time deciding what to make. I’d marked a few things that were possibilities and started with these Double Chocolate Banana Muffins. I made a few minor changes to them and LOVED them. The first time I made them, I made six large muffins tops with my muffins top pan.

I’ve had the muffin top baking sheet for a while, but this was the first time I’d actually made muffin tops with it. I’ve only used it for cookies in the past. Sam ate one of the big muffins tops one morning and declared they were the best thing I’d ever made!

Taylor ate one after school that day and also loved them! (These pictures were taken Christmas morning with my new iPhone that Kevin is in love with.)

With that first batch, I made six of the big muffin tops and 11 mini muffins.

That batch of muffins was eaten in no time. I actually found myself impatiently waiting for the bananas on the counter to ripen so I could make them again. You know, usually you turn around and find bananas overripe. This time it seemed like waiting for a pot of water to boil! But as soon as I had more bananas, I made the muffins again. I really only made a few changes from Veronica’s recipe. She used some all purpose flour and some whole wheat flour, but I decided to use all whole wheat pastry flour. You’d never know! I like that these muffins have no sugar (ok, besides the chocolate chips, but you could easily leave those out!). The only sweetener, besides the natural sweetness from the bananas is agave nectar! These muffins are so moist they could easily be used as a healthy cupcake with just a little frosting on top.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffins tins (or muffin top baking sheet) with cooking spray. (Since there isn’t a lot of fat in these muffins, I decided not to use paper liners, as I find they usually stick. Veronica did line hers with paper liners and didn’t mention they stuck.)

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, flax, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and whisk together to sift. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the banana, agave, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry just until moistened. Fold in the chocolate chips. Divide evenly between muffin tin cups. Bake the mini muffins and/or muffin tops for about 12 minutes. Regular sized muffins take about 20 minutes. Remove from muffin tins when cool enough to handle. Let cool completely on wire rack.

The second time I made the muffins, I made them all mini size and put three big, dark chocolate chips on top of each. Made for a fun look to the muffins! These made a great snack or preworkout little energy boost for me. Most of the boys really like them, too! My little non-chocolate liker, Parker, didn’t even try one. Sigh. ;)

I just happen to have three more overripe bananas ready to be turned into some great chocolaty muffins right now!

Katrina, it's so nice to meet you through the SRC and blogging! I really appreciated the write-up you did on me and my blog-that was so sweet and thoughtful. And I'm just so tickled that you made one of my very few original recipes (I steal most of them-lol) and enjoyed it! Wheee! I like that you used all whole wheat flour too! I was using stone ground whole wheat flour, which is why I used some AP too, to keep the crumb from being course, but next time I will get some ww pastry flour and follow your lead. Great idea!

I really like your blog!! It´s very nice and cute.All the recipes and post, are both very interesting :DI´m your new follower!I invite you to visit my blog, I hope you like it.xoxoxo from Spainhttp://janakitchen.blogspot.com

Those look delicious! Do you think white whole wheat flour would work in place of the whole wheat pastry flour? It's not available in my market, and the cheapest bad on amazon is almost ten dollars for one pound.

Jennifer, yes, try the white whole wheat. I think they would still be good. Check the website www.honeyvillegrain.com for whole wheat pastry flour. I know it isn't cheap pretty much anywhere, but I love this site--you can order any amount you want of food storage things and the shipping is always $4.49. I bought a 50 lb. bag of whole wheat pastry flour from them! That'll last me a while!